J. Taraborrelli - The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

COWRITER: Ben Maddow

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Harold Rosson

The Fireball (1950)

Mickey Rooney, Pat O’Brien, Marilyn Monroe (Polly)

Thirty-year-old Rooney plays a teenage fugitive from an orphanage who struggles before becoming a skating star in the roller derby, very big on early TV. Father O’Hara (O’Brien) tries to save him from himself, much as Father Flanagan did for Whitey Marsh in Boys’ Town fifteen years earlier. 84 minutes.

20th Century-Fox

PRODUCER: Bert Friedlob

DIRECTOR/COWRITER: Tay Garnett

COWRITER: Horace McCoy

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Lester White

All About Eve (1950)

Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, Marilyn Monroe (Claudia Casswell)

A ruthless, conniving ingénue insinuates her way into the inner circle of a legendary, aging Broadway star, leaving wrecked lives and shattered relationships in her wake, as she claws her way to the very pinnacle of theatrical stardom. Of the set pieces, Marilyn shines in two of them, earning kudos from the critics. Widely considered the best film about the theater ever made and, by the American Film Institute, among others, one of the best films of all time. The script contains a number of memorable lines, not the least being Davis’s warning to her captive audience to “fasten your seatbelts.” Nominated for fourteen Academy Awards, winning six, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. 138 minutes.

20th Century-Fox

PRODUCER: Darryl F. Zanuck

DIRECTOR/WRITER: Joseph L. Mankiewicz

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Milton Krasner

Right Cross (1950)

June Allyson, Dick Powell, Ricardo Montalban, Marilyn Monroe (Dusky LeDoux)

Anglo-Latino romantic entanglements are unresolved as they play out against the story of a Chicano fighter (Montalban) trying to hang on to his boxing career after a hand injury leaves him a noncontender. Allyson is in his corner, but not necessarily in his bed. Marilyn plays a bar girl who has a brief encounter with Powell, Montalban’s best friend. Pretty dull going, but good production values help. 90 minutes.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

PRODUCER: Armand Deutsch

DIRECTOR: John Sturges

WRITER: Charles Schnee

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Norbert Brodine

Home Town Story (1951)

Jeffrey Lynn, Donald Crisp, Marilyn Monroe (Iris Martin)

After losing a hard-fought reelection bid to the legislature, Jeffrey Lynn assumes control of the hometown newspaper and launches a bitter attack on the man he holds responsible for his defeat, Donald Crisp, the powerful head of the town’s biggest business. The film was made on the MGM lot by General Motors’ public relations department, which rejected the final result as substandard. Metro deemed it unworthy of copyright renewal and it languished in the public domain until Marilyn’s fans rediscovered it. She has a two-minute scene as a receptionist in the newspaper office. 61 minutes.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

PRODUCER/WRITER/DIRECTOR: Arthur Pierson

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Lucien Andriot

As Young as You Feel (1951)

Monty Wooley, Thelma Ritter, David Wayne, Constance Bennett, Marilyn Monroe (Harriet)

A sixty-five-year-old factory worker (Wooley), forced into an unwanted retirement, impersonates the company president and saves the firm from bankruptcy, proving his worth and saving his job. Solid cast makes the story believable, with Marilyn in small role as an office worker. Marilyn devotees know this is the film where she and Arthur Miller first met. 77 minutes.

20th Century-Fox

PRODUCER: Lamar Trotti

DIRECTOR: Harmon Jones

WRITER: Lamar Trotti (story by Paddy Chayevsky)

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Joe McDonald

Love Nest (1951)

William Lundigan, June Haver, Marilyn Monroe (Roberta “Bobbie” Stevens)

A post–World War II sex comedy, without the sex and short on comedy, with ex-GI Lundigan and Haver as newlyweds and new owners of an aged brownstone in New York. Tenant and ex-WAC, Marilyn’s role is described in one review as “an extended cameo,” the highlight being a scene in which she emerges from the shower draped only in a towel. 84 minutes.

20th Century-Fox

PRODUCER: Jules Buck

DIRECTOR: Joseph Newman

WRITER: I. A. L. Diamond

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Lloyd Ahern

Let’s Make It Legal (1951)

Claudette Colbert, Macdonald Carey, Zachary Scott, Robert Wagner, Marilyn Monroe (Joyce Mannering)

Miriam and Hugh Halsworth (Colbert and Carey), after a twenty-year marriage, are in the throes of a divorce when an old suitor (Zachary Scott) of hers rolls into town. Marilyn’s contributions are mostly decorative as she spends much of her screen time in a swimsuit. Of the romantic comedy, one critic wrote, “[It] feels overstretched even at an hour and a quarter.” It’s hard to believe that this is the best Miss Colbert could manage following her withdrawal only a year earlier for medical reasons as Margo Channing in All About Eve , giving Bette Davis the role of a lifetime. 77 minutes.

20th Century-Fox

PRODUCER: F. Hugh Herbert

DIRECTOR: Richard Sale

COWRITERS: I. A. L. Diamond and F. Hugh Herbert

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Lucien Ballard

Clash by Night (1952)

Barbara Stanwyck, Paul Douglas, Robert Ryan, Marilyn Monroe (Peggy)

After a hard-knock life in New York, Mae Doyle (Stanwyck) returns to her hometown, a coastal California village, to live with her fisherman brother. She is courted by a boat owner, Jerry (Douglas), eventually marries him, has a child, and begins an adulterous, reckless affair with the brutal Earl (Robert Ryan), all under the nose of her husband. Monroe is a cannery worker, married to Mae’s brother, and they both look great in their beachwear, but add nothing to the goings-on in this noirish melodrama. 105 minutes.

RKO Pictures—(A Wald-Krasna Production)

PRODUCER: Harriet Parsons

DIRECTOR: Fritz Lang

WRITER: Alfred Hayes (based on a Clifford Odets play)

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Nicholas Musuraca

We’re Not Married (1952)

Ginger Rogers, Fred Allen, Eve Arden, Paul Douglas, David Wayne, Marilyn Monroe (Annabel Jones Norris)

Five couples are notified that their marriages are invalid because the license of the justice of the peace who performed the ceremonies had not yet kicked in. The couples react to the news in a variety of ways, with Monroe and Wayne’s solution easily the most comic: Already a winner of the Mrs. Mississippi contest, Annabel is now free to enter the Miss Mississippi contest, which she also wins. First of two so-called episodic movies featuring Monroe. 85 minutes.

20th Century-Fox

PRODUCER/WRITER: Nunnally Johnson

DIRECTOR: Edmund Goulding

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Leo Tolver

Don’t Bother to Knock (1952)

Richard Widmark, Marilyn Monroe (Nell Forbes)

Marilyn moves from featured player to leading lady in this melodramatic, disturbing film noir. She is a suicidal, perhaps homicidal, babysitter whose flirtatious overtures to a war-damaged pilot (Widmark) have unexpected and near-deadly consequences. The film was mounted by studio honchos to assay Monroe’s dramatic skills, which proved to be considerable. 76 minutes.

20th Century-Fox

PRODUCER: Julian Blaustein

DIRECTOR: Roy Ward Baker

WRITER: Daniel Taradash

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Lucien Ballard

Monkey Business (1952)

Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, Charles Coburn, Marilyn Monroe (Miss Lois Laurel)